Elite Review

Released: Feb 26, 2013Genre: Deathcore, MetalcoreLabel: E1 EntertainmentNumber Of Tracks: 11
With this record Within The Ruins give birth do a very good successor to their previous record "Invade", keeping the quality very high.

Elite
Reviewed by:
frax21, on march 07, 2013 0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Sound: Within The Ruins have always been one of the true gems in the overcrowded world of the "core" genre, and with this record they definitely took a step forward in their musical growth. "Elite" is the follow-up to their critically praised 2010 record "Invade", which already was a pretty big statement with a fresh and innovative sound. In "Elite" you can still find their signature sound, but you can feel it has evolved. At the base guitarist Joe Cocchi brings in his new signature Acacia baritone guitar, which has a thicker and "fatter" sound already. The new bass player Andrew Tate (ex-And Hell Followed With) is at his first WTR record, and he delivers a solid rhythmic performance as well. The thing that stands out the most though is still Cocchi's guitar work, with groovy riffs, fast licks, lots of harmonies and some well put breakdowns. His riffs are, if possible, even more technical and fast, and overall more compact than in their previous material. I'd say you can tell he had organic ideas for complete songs rather than single riffs, being the only guitar player now in the band. So in the end the WTR sound is still there, but with a new twist and some new interesting ideas that help to keep it interesting and never boring, which is not an easy task when Deathcore/Metalcore is the most "a la mode" genre out there. Highest points to me are first single "Feeding Frenzy", "Ataxia II", "The Charm" and "Weightless". // 9

Lyrics: The lyrics, when seen from an overall perspective, do their job, delivering some powerful images, but it feels like vocalist Tim Goergen could have raised the bar more than that. In general the topics are not really new around town, but still there are a few pretty interesting highs in them with songs like "New Holy War", "The Charm" (which is a Dexter reference) or even "Absolute Hell" but they are more like a new take on something already discussed. The performance though is pretty solid, with Tim delivering some powerful highs and deep lows, and still sticking to a mid-low tone most frequently, with some new though short talked parts, which I think he could have explored more. // 6

Overall Impression: With this record Within The Ruins give birth do a very good successor to their previous record "Invade", keeping the quality very high, but maybe not completely topping it in the end. Still we are talking about one of the few bands that honestly doesn't sound pretty much like anything you could hear around these days, which is something they have to be praised for and has to be acknowledged. I still feel like this is a mind blowingly cool and solid record, enjoyable from first to last track, obviously with some highs and lows like every other record, but Within The Ruins manage to keep you interested all along. Maybe a little more work on the lyrics and a few here and there corrections could have turned it into an excellent record, but it still is a step forward for the band, bringing in new ideas and twists as they do since their first record "Creature" until now with "Elite". In the end I'm definitely happy I preordered it and suggest to anyone looking for an incredibly fresh and interesting take on Tech Metalcore/Deathcore to go on and buy it.

The only song I heard off of this was the one posed above, Feeding Frenzy, and I was completely unimpressed. For the most part, their whole previous album was pretty good, but I just found this song to get boring quickly.

Don't get butt hurt because I'm not impressed by the way an album was produced or mixed. I don't give a shit what studio they used. That's like if I said "I hate the guitar in this song" and you responded "yeah well their guitars are expensive pro models so you're stupid for not liking it".

Just because other albums have inflated ratings doesn't mean that this one should equal it out. If we're talking about school-level grading, a 7.7 is a C+ and that doesn't begin to do this band or album justice. Personally, I'd give it an A-. A 9 for "Sound" is accurate. An 8 for "Impression" is probably accurate too. But giving an equally weighted "Lyrics and Singing" a 6 is not accurate. Sure the lyrics may not be the most thought provoking, but so what? The focus of this album is not the lyrics, it's the mindbending instrument work, and even the vocal DELIVERY is excellent. Give them an 8 or a 9. The album's overall rating should be at LEAST a full point higher.

This great. The only band that I know have that doesn't release shit music compared to the rest of the metal and even non metal bands I like lately. The rest of other bands have been releasing horrible new albums lately that make me lose interest. This album was good. They don't disappoint.

Need to listen to this album! Invade wasn't too bad, first I'd heard from them. I actually met Andrew outside of a show, his sister is my dad's girlfriend's old roommate (true story, I swear) and I bought my bass amp from him at Guitar Center while he was on a break from tour. He's a pretty cool guy, gave me a sweet discount too.

Amazing album IMO. Great follow up to Invade, they have slight changes on every record that help keeps the songs fresh. To any devoted listener, you can hear the lack of repeated phrases and licks from the first album, and the lack of pinch harmonics which have been replaced with a bunch of new Digitech Whammy tricks I've yet to hear from another player. Theres also a new found respect for chordal type passages with their guitarist. The lack of extreme or fast solos makes me sad in a sense but there are more than enough lead harmonies to make up for that.
Overall out of ten, I'd got with an 8. Do remember that this album was written by one guitarist as opposed to the other two cd's.